Coulee Dam Washington – The Northwest Native Development Fund (NNDF) learned yesterday that they will become the recipient of a $770,000 award for the expansion of services and to increase the volume of their small business lending. The NNDF will use the $770,000 award as seed to grow their lending capital fund and increase the current portfolio to $5 million dollars by the year 2020.

“We are happy, humbled and excited that the CDFI Fund saw fit to invest in our little company,”said Ted Piccolo NNDF Executive Director. “We have already provided over $3 million dollars in small business financing and this award will help us leverage to larger financing dollars in order to fuel small businesses in Eastern Washington.”

The NNDF provides credit builder loans for people who are struggling to increase their credit scores while avoiding predatory lending operations. They also provide free family budgeting workshops, small business marketing workshops and an extensive business planning course. All of this financial education is tied to over $3 million dollars in small business financing and over $100,000 in consumer/credit builder lending.

The CDFI Fund’s Native Initiatives generates economic opportunity for Native Communities by supporting the creation and expansion of Native CDFIs like NNDF though the Native American CDFI Assistance Program (NACA Program) and Capacity Building Initiative trainings. The Native CDFIs, in turn, help to create jobs, establish or improve affordable housing, and provide accessible financial services and counseling within their communities.

Sponsor the Native Business Awards Gala

Come and celebrate the 10th Anniversary of the Northwest Native Development Fund and sponsor a wonderful evening of music, arts and small business recognition.

On September 14th the NNDF will be hosting our 4th annual Native Business Awards and celebrating the Native Business Network. Each year we take notice to honor three special awardees.

Eagle Award (Native Business Of The Year)

Salmon Award (Native Purchaser/Supporter Of The Year)

Bear Award (Native Business Advocate Of The Year)

We will also be recognizing award winning Native Artists from throughout the year and welcoming Raye Zaragoza as special musical entertainment for the evening.

We at the NNDF thank you for your consideration of being a proud sponsor of the 3rd Annual Native Business Awards Gala and Art Auction. Your support for this event will help build, promote and celebrate the growing Small Business community within Indian Country of Washington State.

Eagle Sponsor $2,500:

Will receive all of the benefits of the Salmon Sponsor, PLUS;

Live recognition from the emcee of the event on the evening of the event;

A table (Seating 10)

Salmon Sponsor $1,500:

Salmon Sponsor will receive a minimum of three weekly expressions of appreciation in NNDF social media marketing (Facebook, Twitter);

A footnote of thanks and appreciation on all emails delivered regarding the event, before and after the gala;

A mention in any materials that are printed from the time sponsorship is confirmed up to the time of the event and to include any relevant post event publications;

Logo and company name in printed materials distributed at the event;

Logo and company name included in video presentation at the event.

Bear Sponsorship $1,000:

Bear sponsor will receive a minimum of a once weekly expression of appreciation in NNDF social media marketing (Facebook, Twitter);

Logo and company name included in the video presentation at the event.

Please contact Damaris Ortiz at (509) 633-9940 or email damariso@thenndf.org. If you would like your logo to be presented in the materials, please be sure to have your marketing department include them in your email to us along with something wonderful we can say about your organization in the video presentation!

The NNDF is a 501c3 Non-Profit Corporation and all contributions are tax deductible

The NNDF can proudly announce that Raye Zaragoza will be performing live at the 4th annual Native Business Awards Gala and Dinner on September 14th 2018. This annual event will also mark the 10 year anniversary of the Northwest Native Development Fund.

Please mark your calendars for September 14 and be sure to come and join us as we celebrate the Native Small Business of the year, outstanding Native artists and ten years of NNDF.

Tickets can be purchased online HERE for $20. They include dinner, artists evening, entertainment, awards ceremony and networking.

Raye Zaragoza is an award-winning singer, songwriter, and performer whose multinational heritage (Native American (O’odham), Mexican, Taiwanese and Japanese) deeply informs her music. This perspective can be heard in her independently released song “In the River,” a response to the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline near the Standing Rock Sioux reservation in North Dakota. The quiet yet powerful track resonated strongly with listeners and went viral in late 2016, garnering half a million views on the video, national media coverage, and a Global Music Award and Honesty Oscar.

Raye’s debut album, Fight For You (independent, 2017), displays her compassion, dedication to justice and equality for all, and keen eye for the seemingly small daily moments that become our most meaningful memories. About the record, Raye says, “This album is about finding yourself and finding your voice. It’s about maturing and realizing that you can make a difference if you so choose.”

September 13-14

Small Business Loan Underwriting Training

With NNDF and Oweesta

This event is for loan officers, CDFI accountants, Executive Directors.

Would you like to see how other Native CDFI’s intake, underwrite and process small business loans? Walk through the process of underwriting different small business loans?

Save this date and book your rooms under the Northwest Native Development Fund room block at the Centennial Hotel (formerly Hotel RL) in Spokane Washington. The special NNDF rate for this event is $95 per night. Room block dates are available Wednesday September 12 through Friday September 14. View room block flyer HERE.

Call The Centennial Hotel Spokane to book your room under the room block toll free: 1-844-733-3305 and ask for Mary Jean Jacob. Or you can email Mary Jean at MJacob@centennialhotelspokane.com and refer to the Northwest Native Development Fund block code NORT0912.

Classroom space is limited to 40 individuals. If you want to insure that you have space at this event register ONLINE HERE. If you have any questions please contact Cassandra at cassandraw@thenndf.org (or call (509) 633-9940) in order to secure your registration. Cost for the training is $150.

— Draft Agenda —

Wednesday Arrivals

Thursday

NNDF- Essentials of gathering information for Small Business loan underwriting.

Oweesta/NNDF – Underwrite and analyze small business #1. Walk through analysis.

Oweesta/NNDF – Underwrite and analyze small business #2.

Closing Day for both loans. Perfecting the deal.

4:00 Wrap

Friday

Rewriting a failing loan

Procedures when a loan fails

Managing your loan portfolio

Lunch keynote with Chrystel Cornelius

5:30 pm Gala and Native Business Awards

Attendees are invited to join the NNDF as we celebrate our 10 year anniversary. Workshop attendees are encouraged to join us for the Friday night Native Business Awards Gala. As a paid attendee of the workshop you will get free attendance to the awards night, dinner and entertainment. We just ask that you RSVP for that event as well because our seating is limited.

Do you know a Native CDFI with a Loan Officer who would like to learn more about underwriting small business loans? How about a Native CDFI who has an accountant that would like to learn more about CDFI accounting? Would they like join with some other Loan Officers and Financial Officers and learn best practices?

Please join the NNDF as we will be joined by First Nations Oweesta Corp in hosting a workshop in Spokane Washington on September 13 & 14 to walk through the process of underwriting, closing and following up on small business loans. And a secondary training on maintaining your CDFI financials.

As an added benefit, the evening of the second day the NNDF will be hosting our 4th annual Native Business Awards Gala and all course participants are welcome to join us in an evening of celebrating Native Entrepreneurship.

One of our funding partners, Wells Fargo Bank, has highlighted their relationship with the NNDF in their annual report. This is a very significant document and it is truly an honor to be noticed not just once but TWICE in their annual report.

Note on page 2 there is the picture of the owner of Red Willow Cafe’ and then again on page 32 there is a story about the NNDF relationship with Red Willow and some more pictures.

Thank you Wells Fargo for your relationship and helping us to fund the dreams of Native Entrepreneurs in the great Pacific Northwest.

The NNDF recently received a $32,000 grant from the First Nations Development Institute of Longmont, Colorado. This award will support the efforts of the NNDF’s Plateau Native Arts Project.

“We are really excited to receive this grant from FNDI. This will greatly help our already growing arts program,” said Ted Piccolo NNDF executive director. “This will help us expand our annual Art Show, open an arts gallery for tourists, and provide more training for our local artists.”

The expanded Plateau Native Arts Project will incorporate an arts gallery in the Grand Coulee Dam area during the high traffic tourist months that will become a training and gathering space for local artists in the off season. The additional funding from FNDI will help expand the already growing Plateau Native Art Show held over Labor Day Weekend and will help the NNDF to provide more artists in business training for artists in our community.

“We have quite the artist population living quietly in our community right now,” said Piccolo, “We hope to be able to provide support for these folks and see this area eventually become a hub for artists in the Plateau Region of Washington State.” The grant timeline for this project will run from January 2018 to January 2019. The NNDF expects to host at least three training sessions that will match up experienced artists with young artists. For more information about the NNDF contact Ted Piccolo at (509) 633-9940 and for more information on the artists program contact
Cassandra Waters at (509) 633-9940.

The NNDF is a non-profit certified Native Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI). The primary mission is to help individuals within our geographic boundary to build assets by bringing financing and training resources. Follow us on Facebook.com/TheNNDF, or our website at www.thenndf.org.

We at the NNDF look at a number of things when we make a decision to fund a loan application or not to fund a loan application. These things are generally called the C’s of credit. Each “C” is weighted differently depending on the circumstances, however as a rule of thumb, all are taken into consideration and the stronger you are at each point the more likely the applicant will be successful at receiving funding.

Many lending institutions call them the 5 C’s of credit. They are: Credit History (character), Capacity, Collateral, Capital and Conditions.

Due to the unique nature of our region and history, we have narrowed this process down to what we call the 3 C’s. They are: Character, Capital/Collateral and Cash Flow (Capacity).

Character: This is just what it sounds like. This is not always a simple monetary calculation although much of the weight of the character portion of a credit analysis can come from a credit report and time on a job or time a person has owned a business. However, there are some other questions we will take into consideration that will help us reach an assessment of a borrower for this portion of the decision. Some other considerations that my help us assess the honesty and reliability to pay a debt may be:

How have they used credit cards or other forms of high cost financing? Do they understand the costs and are they willing to change behavior if it will help them? (They are asking us to make a financial commitment to them, are they willing to make behavioral changes for us?)

Do they pay their bills on time? We will often ask other lenders to see if the potential borrower is timely. Then, unlike outside institutions, we will usually weigh some extenuating circumstances. Was there a wildfire? Flooding? Medical issues?

Have they been at the same job or owned their business for a long period of time? Occasionally, we can look at an applicant and see that they have been in business for quite a long time and had one “bad year” and can show a good explanation for that down year. Things happen… But do they “happen a lot?”

Often this is a place where NNDF has provided some financial education or coaching. We have many applicants who have never been taught the importance of establishing and maintaining a good credit history. If they have not, we then look at the applicant/client and ask if they are willing to learn that importance and do the things they need to do to begin to build good credit “character.”

Capital/Collateral: This is often a portion that is the weakest with our borrowers. However, it is also an area in which we can work with the applicant. Historically asset creation has been difficult in Indian country due to various reasons that are not always the fault of our borrowers. However, we still have our loan policies to guide us and those policies dictate that we have security for our loans. The security, or assets or collateral, generally need to match the amount of capital that is sought for the length of time it is sought. For instance; will the collateral’s value last the entire term of a loan. It would not be fair to NNDF or the borrower to lend money on security that will have lost all or most of its fair market value before the end of the term of the loan thus leaving the borrower to be paying on something after it has reached the end of its life span. Some questions about capital/collateral are;

What property do you own that can secure a loan?

Is there a savings account?

Equipment?

Accounts Recievable?

And finally, if they have the requisite number of months at the same job we can use payroll deductions as a form of collateral for smaller loans.

Cash Flow (Capacity): Now that we know the borrower has good credit history or “good financial character” and we have a reasonable sense of collateral the next question is “can the borrower repay the debt.” Often borrowers believe if they just had $X.XX of dollars more they can “fix” their situation. However, that is not always the case. Because the new NNDF debt could, in the long run, place the borrower in a worse cash flow position than when they first came to us. We also must look at whether the borrower will be able to stay in their position long enough to actually “service” (make the required payments on) the new debt.

Generally, this is a mathematical question. Some questions we will ask of the borrower are:

Is your job steady? Or is your business going to last long enough to service the debt? There have been times we have made smaller loans with much shorter terms or (balloon) payments that match their job or contract. And of course, if it is a contract then the contract obviously had to be more than enough to service the debt obligation.

How many other loan obligations do they have? This is another issue that many borrowers overlook or upon which they do not place enough value. If an applicant has many loan obligations already and we are simply adding to the list we have to know that the addition of our loan obligation will significantly improve their ability to service their other obligations as well as ours. We would not be helping them (or us) if we have placed the borrower in a position to not be able to pay all their obligations.

What are their current living expenses? Even for a business loan decision we must look at the applicant’s current living expenses. If their living expenses cause too much of a drain from the business at what point are they forced to make decisions between paying business debts or maintaining a particular lifestyle? Often times this is another point of education for a client. Owning a business, or taking on a personal loan, often requires difficult life choices. “Can I keep doing some of the extra-curricular things I enjoy if my monthly income is diminished by these new loan obligations?”

Most lending institutions will require that their applicants meet or exceed all the needs of the 3 C’s. We at the NNDF serve a much different market. Often, we can work with a borrower if they fall short in one of these points IF we can see that the other two items are solid, AND they are willing to take the necessary steps to overcome that one bad credit factor. If we must overlook two or more credit points, then the loan becomes increasingly difficult if not almost impossible.

Order Up!

Wells Fargo Bank Produces A Video Journal

Be sure to check outTHISwonderful video produced by one of NNDF’s partners, (Wells Fargo Bank) regarding one of our Native clients.

The story chronicles the path of Theresa Desautel as she became an entrepreneur on the Colville Indian Reservation and how the Northwest Native Development Fund has worked to help her finance, grow and sustain her enterprise.

The story also highlights the working relationship that the NNDF has with Wells Fargo Bank and how important it is to have good partners as we continue to grow our efforts

It is important on a day like today (Giving Tuesday) to show stories like this. The Northwest Native Development Fund is a non-profit Community Development Financial Institution. We work to bring financing into some of the most difficult regions of the Pacific Northwest. We take chances where other for-profit organizations cannot. We are truly thankful for the support we receive from organizations like Wells Fargo Bank and other.

Please take a moment to watch the video and if you believe that this is the kind of work that you can support then take another moment to make a tax deductible donation to the NNDFhereor